The Quest
by Foreigner
Summary: A tragedy happens at the flower shop. Is this the end of Weiss?


Disclaimer: I don't own Weiss Kreuz or it's characters, so it's pointless to sue me.  
  
Warning: This story contains violence, right from the first chapter, and so if the sight of blood or just any kind of violence has any effect on your psychological state, don't read or don't apply to me if consequences should arise from reading this text, you have been warned. Ah.. And there will be shounen-ai pairings (I might add "solely".). Therefore should the relationships between to members of the male gender offend you, aim your mouse at the "return" button of your browser and don't bother me with that kind of problem.  
  
Author's note: Warnings and Disclaimer are given.. On to the story! Ah.. I forgot: This takes place after the last episode of the series.  
  
///////////////////// means a change of setting  
  
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Ran was happily walking towards the flower shop, smiling to himself at the prospect of seeing Ken again. He had bought the man a simple ring of gold, and meant to propose to him that afternoon. It was the first anniversary of the beginning of their relationship, and Ran had thus judged the occasion to be perfect. The sun had been shining all day long, and the mood of all Weiss members had been excellent. Ran had stopped his walk to look around him, as he had recognized the spot as bearing past memories, even though he had not walked this way for a long time. 'I have not been here for. Yes. It must be a year, now. This was where..' The smile on Ran's face widened. 'Where he told me. I had been looking for him for a while, and given up, but just then I saw him sitting here. Leaning against that wall over there. I talked to him, asked him what was on his mind, but he wouldn't say. He ended up in my arms, crying. Crying that he had had feelings for ages. That I had never seen in him anything more than just one of his fellow assassins.. - Oh how wrong he was then.. - I had never seen Ken cry before. He was not the kind to cry. But these feelings had obviously become too hard for him to bear and so it just had to come out. He was so cute when he wouldn't believe me that I felt the same for him..' Ran shifted his glance, which had been cast into the distance, back to the pavement leading to the shop. Right in front of him, a single petal of rose-like colour was floating down in slow circles. 'A petal of the Sakura.' That thought in itself seemed strange to him. 'But there are no Sakuras in this part of town. How? It doesn't matter. I'll just go home and give Ken his ring.' The momentary frown disappeared from his face and was replaced by a smile. Yet a certain feeling of uneasiness remained, and as he walked along the street further, he had the feeling that someone, or something was following him. And as he turned around, he saw no one, and the Sakura petal was gone. 'It's gone. But there's no wind.. Strange.' Ran thought to himself that he was far too worried for such a beautiful day, and that it was high time that he should distract himself by carrying out his plans on Ken's behalf. Even though, Ran's steps were by far quicker than before, when he once again started walking towards home. He arrived at the shop and pushed the door open, shouting: "Guuyys! I'm back!" No one answered him. 'Did they go out? But they'd have told me.' Ran walked further into the shop, looking for any signs of life. "Is anyone th. AAAAAHH! Omi!! OOOMII!" Ran had arrived at the counter and was looking behind it, where a body lay in a small pool of red liquid. The look in Omi's eyes was that of unbelievable fear, which Ran could see, for they were still open, although completely unmoving.. An arrow had obviously entered the boy's head through one temple, coming back out through the other. A thought shot through Ran's mind: 'Ken! I hope Ken's well! But first I must get my Katana. There's been a killer in here.. and maybe he's still.' Ran mounted the stairs towards the room in which the weapons were still being kept. He opened the door and uttered another scream: "Yohji! YOOHJI!" The orange-haired man was hanging from the ceiling, a small string wound around his neck was tied to one of the room's beams. It was obvious that, no less than Omi, Yohji had suffered unbearable fear, as well as pain, before he had died. Ran grabbed his Katana from the wall and ran back down the stairway, towards the kitchen, his Katana ready to cut to pieces the monster who had dared do that to his friends. In the kitchen, Ran fell to his knees after the first look around. The sight was completely unbearable. On the ground, Ken was lying, naked, blood all over the cupboards behind him, and the whole youthful body covered with cuts that had been inflected by something extremely alike claws. Ran was sobbing. "How. Just how COULD THEY! HOW COULD THEY DO THAT TO YOU!" His sobs had turned into a scream. "I WANTED TO. I WANTED TO PROPOSE TO YOU. TODAY. AND THEY JUST SLAUGHTERED YOU. I'LL NEVER, BELIEVE ME; NEVER; LET THEM GET AWAY WITH IT!!!!" Ran grabbed his katana, which he had dropped when falling to his knees, stood up, and made for the living room. No one seemed to be inside there, though Ran felt a strange kind of presence in the room. The man made a few steps further and looked around the place once again. Over the settees, the arm chairs, the small table, the different pictures on the wall, finally halting on the fire place. Some kind of spark was building inside there. When Ran was standing exactly in front of it, he could see that there was not only one spark, there were three, of different colours: One yellow, one blue and one green. The sparks grew bigger and bigger, finally changing into heads, or rather faces. At first they were unrecognizable, but finally Ran could see who it was. Nagi, Farfarello and Schuldig were looking at him with evil smiles on their faces. Suddenly, a mixture of their three voices could be heard in the room. "The clever warrior always looks BEHIND HIM!" Ran's last thought before his head fell to the ground, cut of by a sharp blade, was 'Brad is missing.'.  
  
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Ran opened his eyes and saw.. nothing. It was completely dark around him, and no sound could be heard. Ran stood up, and, walking on some invisible ground, made a few steps. Then he looked around him. After his eyes had got used to the darkness, he could finally see a very small light in a distance. He directed his steps towards it, and when he finally reached it, he recognized the thin figure of his a woman. "Mum. What are you doing here? Am I dead? What happened? Is this hell? Or heaven?" "Hello Ran. You've grown into a man since I last saw you.." The woman was smiling gently at her son. "These are many questions, but I think I can answer them: I am here, because I left your world. And you are dead. The demon of Hatred, who was once called Brad Crawford, killed you. And this is neither hell nor heaven. You work on earth is not yet completed, and thus you shall have to return. All of you." Ran suddenly noticed that the three other Weiss members had gathered around them. "You will have four days, not a single second more, to defeat all four demons. They are: The demon of hatred, once Brad. The demon of cruelty, once Farfarello. The demon of Cowardice, once Nagi. And the demon of Guilt, once Schuldig. If you do not defeat them, and I mean all of them, the events that brought you hear will repeat." "We'll die over again?" Ran asked. "That was exactly what I meant. And that time, there won't be any return. This is your one and only chance." "But how will we find the demons?" Omi wanted to know. "They will tell you where to find them. And now you must go, and don't forget. 96 hours, and not a single second more. Even the fraction of a second would be the difference between success and failure. Good luck to you all!" With that, the ghost snapped its fingers, and everything went white before the four men's eyes.  
  
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They woke up in the flower shop, each of them wearing a bracelet on their right wrist. Yohji was the first to recover from the shock and speak: "Guess we'll have to trust her. Hey! Look at that bracelet! You got one too." Omi's interest was instantly awakened. "Indeed. But they are not mere bracelets. Look: They have a gauge on them." The brunette was absolutely right: Six numerals, the last two of which were regularly changing, could be seen on the bracelets. 95 : 59 : 20. And the number was getting smaller. Without speaking a word, the four men knew what this meant. It was the time they had left to find the demons. And maybe the time they had left to live. Ran decided to take the lead. "Let's go into the sitting room and think." No one objected to the idea, and so a few minutes later, they were gathered around the small table, Yohji sitting next to Omi, while Ran was sitting next to Ken. After a while, Ken broke the silence: "She said they'd tell us where to look for them, but up to now, they didn." His speech was interrupted by few sheets of yellowish paper that had, in a small explosion of sparkles, appeared on the table. "Huh, what's that?" Omi's question seemed to be puzzling the other men just as much. Ran took hold of the sheets and looked through them. There was a total of four sheets, out of which two and two were sticking together through some mysterious force. Every sheet had a headline, followed by a few lines of what seemed to be a poem. The headlines read as follows: Demon of red, hatred, Demon of green, cruelty, Demon of yellow, cowardice, Demon of blue, guilt. Red and green were sticking together, and so were the two other sheets. Looking at the poems, Omi told the others his thoughts: "Pretty obvious, what this means. The first two lines of the poems are the city and country, and the last two are the location of our demons."  
  
Indians have been imprisoned and persecuted here, Yet ironically, of freedom the statue's near.  
  
These were the two first lines of the poem on the sheet labelled "Demon of red". "Omi's right." Ken said. "And I think that one's pretty easy: Indians have been imprisoned and persecuted here, that's the US, and Yet ironically, of freedom the statue's near, that's New York." "Pretty good, Ken-chan!" Ran praised his boyfriend. "I'll try the next one. Demon of green:  
  
Between pubs and never ending rain,  
  
In this place, a lake's monster is to restrain.  
  
Pubs and never ending rain? I know! It's Scotland. And the lake's monster? That would be Loch Ness!" "Excellent, Sherlock." said Yohji. "My turn." He took the two other sheets and read out:  
  
Demon of blue  
  
An island of mountains and technology, Once called Edo, here carries you your journey.  
  
After a few seconds of thinking, the man said, smiling: "That's too easy really. It's Japan and Tokyo." "And I have the pleasure of solving the last riddle." Omi remarked. The others were all looking at him when he read the verse:  
  
Demon of yellow,  
  
Located within von Goethe's home state, The city of the famous wall and gate.  
  
"Damn, that's difficult.." Ran said.. Omi answered him, smiling: "Not at all. The problem is, you don't speak German and obviously have no idea of famous poetry. Johann Wolfang von Goethe is the most famous German poet ever. And the city of the famous wall and gate is Berlin. Quite easy in fact."  
  
Silence settled in the room as the four men thought about what to do next. Finally Ran voiced his plan: "We'll just pair up, each pair taking two sheets (those sticking together). Then we'll journey to the places where the demons are waiting, and finally we kick their asses!" Everyone agreed with that plan, and the decision was quickly adopted that Omi and Yohji should take care of Tokyo and Berlin, while Ran and Ken where to journey to Loch Ness and New York. They decided to set off right away, as no time was to be wasted. In due course, Ran and his companion found themselves in a plane towards Scotland a few hours later, while Omi and Yohji were in the flower shop, trying to solve the rest of the poem, which would reveal the exact location of the demon in Tokyo.  
  
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To me, that chapter was really long, and I wanted to reach that very moment in the course of the story.. So I hope you enjoyed it, and it would very much encourage me to go on writing if you could post a few reviews. 


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